“Poor Susan”
by Esther Cho
William Wordsworth’s poem “Poor Susan” ambiguously illustrates the pains of death because one cannot humanly commune with nature when one is dead, spiritually or physically. Susan, the main character in this poem, seems to have faded into nothing because her perceptions are skewed and is no longer fully human. The title “Poor Susan” indicates her current status is deficient in something or many things because “poor” defines someone who is “deserving of pity or sympathy” (OED), and Wordsworth’s definition of a pitiful person is someone who is far from nature, just like Susan. An unidentified narrator informs the audience of her apparent unhappy condition caused by her distance from hearing the natural beauty about her. The narrator’s tone is sympathetic and speculative as it recalls what Susan is missing in her life and how she is less than what she used to be because she is dead, figuratively, and strays from where she is supposed to be. The first four stanzas describe her condition intertwined with lines praising the beautiful and enchanting nature. Yet the last stanza confuses the poem with the narrator’s direct judgment on Susan “Poor Outcast!” (line 17), which indicates the narrator’s perception of Susan, sparking the reader to examine the poem more in depth by its suddenness.
The first stanza begins with the setting. It is a simple setting by a common street called “Wood-Street” (line 1) where Susan “has pass’d by the spot” (line 3). There is a bird, a “Thrush” (line 2), that is capitalized to emphasize the importance of nature even in the form of a little bird warbling away. Susan is given this opportunity to enjoy nature through the song of the thrush, but she has already passed by the spot hearing “the song of the bird” (line 4). The line “pass’d by the spot” (line 3) has more than two meanings. One is where she simply walks past the area day by day and the other is where she has gone beyond being able to return again. In other words, the second conjecture is that Susan is no longer able to hear the thrush’s song because she is unable to return to the spot and hence “pass’d” it eternally.
The second stanza continues this speculation of her death by describing the thrush’s song as a “note of enchantment” (line 5). Susan appears to be remembering the beauty of the nature she leaves by dying and there is a ghost-like quality to her perceptions through the terms, “ascending,” “vision,” “vapour,” “glide,” and “flows” (lines 6-8). The terms produce an otherworldly effect that insinuates a reason why Susan is so poor. She may have ascended beyond nature by dying and what she sees may be visions from her memories that are like vapours gliding and flowing. Furthermore, what Susan sees is the past because “Lothbury” and “Cheapside” are in London, which this time, is likely to have been converted to factories hence, the “volumes of vapour” (line 7) are probably fumes from factories. This brings about another speculation where instead of being physically dead she may be a factory worker immersed in London where there are no hills, flowing streams, and pretty singing thrushes. A death in itself by being away from the nature she experiences as a child. The third stanza emphasizes her sense of loss by the picturesque description of “green pastures” and a simple dwelling that is “the only dwelling on earth she loves” (line 12). This supports the idea that she is not quite physically dead, but spiritually dead from being away from the home, the “only dwelling,” that brings her happiness. The “only dwelling” gives the sense that she may be living amongst many dwellings she loathes because it does not bring her any joy or peace like her childhood home.
The last two stanzas are laced with pain because “her heart is in Heaven” (line 13), a heaven that used to be her childhood idyllic home, and words such as “fade,” “will not flow,” “will not rise,” and the line, “the colours have all pass’d away” (lines 13-16) describes her sense of loss. Nature stops and Susan is left alone in a dry colourless world. Her memories of her heaven, the world where she hears thrushes sing is past, and she is either dead physically or bound to a life that kills her spiritually. The last stanza is a call for her to return by the emphatic “Poor Outcast!” the narrator exclaims. It gives hope to poor Susan that it is possible to return to nature and the simple life nature offers because of the line, “thy Father will open its door” (line 18). The line could also be confused with death because “Father” may refer to God, so she her soul may be returning to a literal heaven. Furthermore, the last line of the poem gives hope that poor Susan may “her the thrush sing from a tree of its own” (line 20) and that is only possible by her return.